By Alex L. Goldfayn

July 30, 2006

My new book, GOING DIGITAL, details the amazing, easy, affordable things you can do with your digital pictures and home movies.

One of my favorite ways to show off photos is on a DVD, playing in big-screen glory, set to the music of my choice.

Among many other things, GOING DIGITAL details ways you can create your own photo slideshow DVDs. It lists software and retailers that will put together DVDs with your favorite pictures and set to music.

But because of the the publishing industry's long cycle, I didn't get to include one company's services...because it simply did not exist when I was writing.

The company is called Pictureal, and it specializes in creating DVDs of your photos and home movies. You send in the raw materials (printed photos, VHS tapes, 8-millimeter tapes; anything you want included) in a pre-paid FEDEX box that's shipped to you by Pictureal. In a couple of days the digital versions of your items are posted on a password protected page and your originals are returned to you via FEDEX.

You lay out the slide show and order of things on the company's Web-based interface. You pick the DVD menu theme. You label the photos with text that will appear in the final DVD. If you send video, you'll be able to select scenes you want included.

Then, Pictureal goes to work, creating your DVD.

I wrote about this company in a Chicago Tribune "My Tech" column recently. Its work is impressive. And if you want to let experts do the work, the price, I believe, is more than justified.

July 29, 2006

Last week, Sony announced it is launching a high-definition video
cameras. You don't hear much about video cameras any more. This got me thinking:

It's clear: We've become a photo society. We didn't used to be.

American homes once used video cameras as much as, if not more than, photo cameras.

But no more.

I grew with a video camera in my face at all times. The photo camera also saw action in our home, but mostly, whether at a birthday party or on a trip to Disney World, my dad's massive shoulder-mounted "camcorder" (which attached via cable to the VCR deck hanging from his other shoulder) was pointed at me.

Today, clearly, we're all about digital photos. More than six out of 10 homes own a digital camera. Many own more than one. Many cell phones have cameras built in. The opportunity to take a digital snapshot is ubiquitous.

Why has this happened? Why is the video camera disappearing from our family events? Here's my crack at the answer:

Digital cameras are more affordable than video cameras.

It takes far less commitment -- especially in time -- to look through photographs. Video demands multi-sensory attention. We must sit and watch and listen to television.

But first we must get our video from the camcorder to the television. This is not always easy. Especially if you want to do some editing of the video. This involves getting it to the computer. Importing it into a video editing program. Making the modifications. Then burning a DVD. Too many steps.

For photographs, the editing and output process is far easier than the above convolution. Just make prints, at the store or at home. Or e-mail the pictures. Either way, it's a one-step process.

This might be the most important one: the technology industry has put its muscle (read: investment) behind digital photography. That's where the innovation is. And the affordability. And the advertising. When's the last time you saw a television commercial for a video camera?

Can video cameras catch up to digital cameras? Do we want (or need) them too? Is the industry going to turn its attention to video once digital photography sales slow?

June 18, 2006

Last month the FCC auctioned off the right for two companies to provide cell phone and Internet service on airplanes. A company called AirCell will offer both varieties of in-flight communication. Another firm, called JetBlue, will only be able to provide Internet access. Both companies are working on providing these services now. Today. It won't be long.

In the next week I will be on two 8-hour flights. In what's left of the calendar year, I will fly more than 30,000 miles. And a lot of people fly a whole lot more than me.

My reaction to cell phones at 30,000 feet? Two words: God Forbid.

It will be the loss of our last peaceful, "unreachable" refuge. I don't want to be reachable when I fly.

And, horrifically, we'll be sitting in a metal tube hurtling through the air at 450 miles per hour as dozens of people scream into their cell phones in an effort to talk louder than the din of the jet engines. You think people talk loud on the bus, or on the train? It will be far worse on the plane. My poor iPod will blow a gasket (do iPods have gaskets?) as I will be using it to drown out all those conversations.

I've talked to frequent fliers about this topic. Several phoned in to yesterday's Technology Tailor Show on WGN Radio to discuss this matter, and, bottom line: most of us agree. The vast majority do not want cell phones in the air.

The numbers back it up too: A survey conducted by the Association of Flight Attendants found that only 21 percent of respondents would like to have cell phone service on their flight.

In-flight wireless Internet service , however, is a different, quieter story. As long as Voice over IP conversations are not allowed!

What do you think?

Do you want cell phone service on your next flight?

Do you think it would a good idea, a bad idea, or a "God Forbid" idea.

June 15, 2006

The Mac Grind, if you haven't heard, is a new dance. Named after my laptop.

The dance goes something like this: you turn and spin and grind non-stop. Once you start, you cannot stop grinding. Just like my Mac laptop's hard drive.

For the first time in years of being a Mac user, I am experiencing serious problems.

My laptop, a 2.5 year-old PowerBook G4 with a 60-gigabyte hard drive and 512 megabytes of RAM, is becoming increasingly frustrating to use. That's because nearly every work day, the hard drive goes into a nearly endless grind, all but shutting down any activity. A click of a mouse sometimes takes minutes to register. So, lately, I've been holding down the power button during these episodes, doing hard shut-down, counting to ten, and then turning the laptop back on.

All this feels very familiar to me -- and, probably, to you -- because it's what Windows users have to do. Mac people are supposed to have a smooth, comfortable, user-friendly experience. Which is what I've had for years now using various Macs. But this laptop, for the first time in my Mac experience, has suddenly developed Windows envy and started emulating its more popular but far less enjoyable cousin.

A few details on the issue:

There are 20 gigabytes free on the hard drive.

The "Mac Grind" usually begins when there are several programs open, which are probably taxing the RAM memory.

It usually begins from inside Microsoft Entourage, the Mac version of Outlook.

Full disclosure: My Entourage e-mail is woefully unmanaged. I have thousands of e-mails in my inbox. Many thousands.

Based on the above, I believe this to be a RAM -- or temporary memory -- issue. There's too many open programs and way to many e-mail messages for my computers 512-megabytes of internal memory.

So, here are the steps I will take:

A computer consulting friend informs me it's not long before the hard drive will crash from all the grinding. I will back up my "Documents" folder on to an external hard drive.

Then I will archive old the old e-mails, and leave several hundred in the inbox rather than several thousand.

June 10, 2006

I have been shopping for an SLR digital camera -- the kind that lets you change big lenses and add big flash units -- for years. Seriously, it has been this long. Mostly because the camera I've been using has been taking fantastic pictures. It's one draw-back: it wasn't an SLR.

Today, finally, I bought that digital SLR.

This is the brief story of my journey.

The Old Camera

For the last three years or so, I've been using a Sony DSC-F707 digital camera. It's a terrific 5-megapixel "pro-sumer" model, which lets you manually control many photographic features such as aperture and shutter speed, but stops short of the "lens-swapping" features of a true SLR. When I bought it, it cost about $700. At the time, it was the perfect camera.

Over the years, this Sony has been on vacation with my family in at least eight countries, and countless birthdays, dinners, parties and holidays. And it has captured spectacular snapshots.

It's on the shelf, I can see it, but I miss it already. I feel guilty. As though I have betrayed it.

The New Camera

Today, I bought a Nikon D50, which is the company's entry-level "low-cost" digital SLR. I paid $699 at Costco of all places. But at your local Best Buy and Circuit City, this camera runs $599. Costco sells it in a kit, which includes a second lens (a large zoom lens), a memory card and a carrying case to hold everything. All together, I probably saved about $250 by purchasing the kit.

This unit takes 6-megapixel photographs. There are much more advanced, more intricate, higher-megapixel SLRs on the market (from companies like Nikon, Canon, Olympus, and very recently, Sony), but this was a perfect start for me.

Why did I want an SLR?

Because as a photography enthusiast -- a buff, you might say -- I want to experiment and play with the variables -- like exposure -- this camera lets me control. I want to use wide-angle lenses and zoom lenses and big flashes. I want to learn more about photography...while taking excellent photographs. This camera, which today is the lowest-priced SLR on the market, will let me do this.

Want to learn more about photography?

Then I heartily recommend this book (not mine!), which is regularly in the top 150 books sold on Amazon.com. It's filled with easy-to-understand lessons and descriptions about high-end photography, and defines -- with words and tremendous snapshots -- terms like f-stop, shutter speed, aperture, etc. If you're a hobbyist photographer, or looking to become one, this will be the best $15 you've ever spent.

As for my guilt...

The battery for the new Nikon is charging now. The light blinking, as if to say, "Hey, when I'm charged up, you're going to take some amazing pictures."

June 05, 2006

Erik Weihenmayer has reached the summit of every one of the seven tallest mountains in the world, including Mount Everest.

He's also a downhill skier, a skydiver, a paraglider, and a member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

He has written two books: one called Touch The Top of The World, and one that comes out in January. And there have been two movies made about his life: a documentary and a life-story drama to premier on A&E on Sunday, June 18.

Why are they making movies about Erik's life? Because one of the world's greatest mountain climbers happens to be completely blind.

I talked to Erik for nearly an hour on The Technology Tailor Show on WGN Radio on Saturday. We talked about his life, his work and his technology -- and took calls from listeners. You can read about the details from the interview and get links to the resources we discussed here, on my radio show page.

But in this space, I'd like to share my take-away from my conversation with Erik. Here's what I learned from Erik Weihenmayer -- who may just be the most inspirational person I've ever talked with.

Turn Obstacles into Advantages

Example #1For most people, Erik said on Saturday's show, it's a disadvantage to be blind on Everest. He was talking about the oxygen mask most climbers wear, and how, if pure oxygen gets inside your eye-mask, your retinas can freeze because it's so cold on Everest. So they wear the mask lower down, letting it hang off their chins, allowing some of the oxygen to escape. Seems like a logical trade-off to me: protect the eyes and sacrifice some oxygen. "Obviously, I don't have that problem," Erik said. He wears his oxygen mask firmly on his face and, unlike most climbers, gets to use 100% of his oxygen.

Example #2Erik reads faster than me. And you. He listens to audio books, and he plays them at 10 times the normal speed. Because his listening and audio-processing abilities are at such a high level, he can't pay attention to a tape played at regular speed. It's brutally slow for him. His mind wanders. So, he swallows audio books at 10x speed, going through them much faster than the time you and I would take to read the words on the pages.

Example #3At age 37 (what a young age to be so remarkably accomplished!), Erik has written two books, had two films made about him, climbed the world's tallest peaks, and skydives, paraglides, and bikes at extremely high levels. He has competed in a televised reality adventure competition. He leads expeditions for people with disabilities. The question is: would he have accomplished all this if he did not go blind at age 13? I wonder if he would be as driven to overcome his perceived disability and accomplish incredible things?

I say "perceived" because Erik Weihenmayer has turned his his blindness into a competitive advantage that drives him to greater heights -- to the top of the world, even -- every day.

(In the A&E movie, which is a dramatization, Erik was asked to be a stunt man for the leading man in one scene. He had to break a 50-foot free fall down the face of a mountain by smashing his ice pick into the frozen mountain.)

In Life and Business, Family is Everything

Erik spoke proudly on the radio show about reading to his 5-year-old daughter. He reads books in braille to her.

When we spoke for my Chicago Tribune column, Erik discussed fondly falling in love with his wife-to-be by listening to her voice as she taught in a classroom.

And Erik's father, Ed, manages and protects Erik's business interests with a fierceness and loyalty that only a father can summon for a son.

As much as Erik's life is about achievement and adventure, underlying all of it, his life is about family. In life and in business, family is everything.

Computers and The Internet are Accessible to Blind People...

How do blind people use a PC? Our interaction with computers is based on us looking at a monitor and clicking on things with a mouse.

Screen readers like JAWS read the text on the screen to blind people. Whether it's Microsoft Word, a blog, or Amazon.com, blind people operate a PC using technologies like screen readers.

...But There's Still a Long Way to Go

If the site is heavy on graphics, screen readers have a hard time. They can only read text. Graphical links make a site unusable. So do flash animations.

That's why some of our biggest companies -- think Microsoft and AOL -- have accessibility departments that are charged with working on making their products and Web sites usable for people with disabilities.

The Bottom Line

If you're feeling down about things not going exactly as you had hoped; if you're procrastinating; if you're not passionate about your life's pursuits; if you're a person with disabilities who struggles with life's challenges; if you're an able-bodied person who struggles with life's challenges, think about Erik Weihenmayer. Think about what he has dealt with, and what he has done, and the incredible things he will no doubt still do.

He has been particularly effective in supplementing his conventionally-published content on his blog. The information is helpful, how-to content that would be hard to distribute in another format.

My column about Guy Kawasaki -- which discusses the personal and professional benefits his blog brings him -- is here.

Andy Wibbels: Author of the Blog Wild!, currently the top-selling book on blogging on Amazon.com, Andy has mastered the business benefits that a blog can bring. In fact, his business is centered around helping small companies utilize blogs for marketing purposes.

Without his blog, that editor from Penguin (a regular reader of Andy's blog) never would have contacted him.

Jen Lancaster: Like Andy, Jen Lancaster is a veteran blogger. You can read her entries on her Web site, Jennsylvania, and on her MySpace page. Jen uses her MySpace page to communicate with her readers and fans, and says she had to be talked into having the page by her publicist. Her book, called Bitter is the New Black, has been a big seller from day one.

I had no plans for a blog until learning about the significant benefits that a blog brought for Guy, Andy and Jen. Their stories are motivational, educational, and, for me, great examples of how a blog can be used to teach and reach.

For me, I hope to use this blog to teach my fellow consumers about the latest in technology news and products and what to do with them once you have them; and to reach people I would not have otherwise connected with.

Because I've been covering technology for years in newspapers, on television, and, more recently, on the radio. And I've always taken a low-tech approach to technology: nearly all of my coverage revolves around how we can use technology to improve our everyday lives.

It's aimed at "normal" consumers: busy people who have to swim through a choppy, crowded sea of high-tech products and loud advertising (waves?) -- and decide which products are worth their hard-earned money. And, we have to figure out how to actually use the stuff in our life and/or work. (Ever try to read a user manual to figure out how to get the most out of your, say, digital camera? Most product manuals read like they've been written in Chinese, and THEN translated into English.)

So, I've tried to help people figure out (a) what technology they should consider investing in and (b) what the heck to do with it once they have it.

I'm proud to take a low-tech approach to technology.

Blogs, in my mind anyway, are not low-tech.

So I've avoided having one. I've fought against it. I battled people who said it would be a great idea for me to have a blog.

They're for teenagers and tech-geeks and people who don't have anything better to do.